Friday, January 8, 2016

Six In The Morning Friday January 8


Chinese shares rise in volatile trade


Chinese shares have risen on the first day of trade since the lifting of a "circuit breaker" mechanism, which had been introduced to prevent sharp falls.
The Shanghai Composite opened more than 2% higher, then quickly turned negative, before rallying again to close 2% higher at 3,186.41. 
Regulators stepped in after big losses in the mainland markets had led trade to be suspended twice this week.
The falls in China have affected markets around the world.
On Thursday, markets in Europe and the US recorded steep losses after trading in China's stock markets closed within the first 30 minutes, making it China's shortest trading day on record. 

Regulators step in

After a volatile trading session, China's stock markets closed higher as investor confidence grew on the new measures introduced by authorities.







Bang bang bang! The K-pop songs being blasted into North Korea

In response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test, South Korea is broadcasting propaganda across the border – including its favourite pop hits

South Korea is trying to get under the skin of its arch-rival with border broadcasts that feature not only criticism of North Korea’s nuclear program, troubled economy and human rights abuses, but also a unique homegrown weapon: K-pop.
“We have selected a diverse range of the most recent popular hits to make it interesting,” a defence ministry official said in a briefing for local reporters.
Here is a guide to the propaganda playlist Seoul began blasting across the borderon Friday in response to Pyongyang’s nuclear test earlier this week:

'Mein Kampf' hits German bookstores for first time since WWII


New copies of Hitler's "Mein Kampf" will hit bookstores in Germany Friday for the first time since World War II, unsettling Jewish community leaders as the copyright of the anti-Semitic manifesto expires.

The southern German state of Bavaria was handed the copyright of the book in 1945, when the Allies gave it control of the main Nazi publishing house following Hitler's defeat.
For 70 years, it refused to allow the inflammatory tract to be republished out of respect for victims of the Nazis and to prevent incitement of hatred.
But "Mein Kampf" -- which means "My Struggle" -- fell into the public domain on January 1.
Copies of an annotated version running to 2,000 pages prepared by German researchers were to go on sale Friday, with the authors arguing that their version would serve to demystify the notorious rant, which in any case can be found just a few clicks away on the Internet.
The version by the Institute of Contemporary History of Munich (IFZ) has been in the works since 2009 and aims to "deconstruct and put into context Hitler's writing".

With this dowry I own your son: Indian brides turn tables


Amrit Dhillon


New Delhi: India's efforts to stop baby girls being aborted are seeing the circulation of some surprisingly hard-hitting videos that are turning the tables on men, using the issue of dowry to turn them into pathetic "objects".
Having to give a dowry to daughters is the single most powerful reason that Indian parents prefer boys. The dowry – cash, fridges, jewellery, TVs, scooters, furniture, sewing machines, cooking utensils – can bankrupt families but without it, no daughter will ever find a husband.
In one video, made for the government campaign Beti Bachao Beti Padhao (Save your Daughter, Teach your Daughter), a young bride is shown about to go for a ride on a scooter with her husband. The woman's father-in-law tells her contemptuously that she had better think again because he needs the scooter to do his chores.

THE centre is in the group’s Syrian stronghold, Raqqa, where technicians from around the world have been plotting to wreak chaos outside the borders of the caliphate declared by the militant Islamic State (IS) group, according to the group’s own fighters and members of the Syrian opposition who seized the film from an IS member in Turkey. 
The footage, obtained by Sky News, sheds light on a research and development arm of the organisation that has long been the subject of speculation, but has not previously been confirmed. 
It also confirms accounts from IS members, as well as the fears of European intelligence agencies, that the group is working to step up attacks in Europe following the coordinated bombing and shooting rampage that killed more than 130 people in Paris in November.

Was North Korea's nuclear test precipitated by an incident involving an all-girl pop band?


Updated by 

Americans are nothing if not narcissistic, and so the recent North Korean nuclear test has been portrayed and debated in the US as varying degrees of all about us. It's a message or warning or plea to America; it's a reaction to President Obama's weakness, to George W. Bush's blunders, even, implausibly, to Hillary Clinton's failure to magically fix northeast Asia in her two years as secretary of state.
The truth is that North Korea can pretty safely conclude that the United States is going to be hostile toward it whether or not it conducted this nuclear test; that the US is probably not going to change its policy much one way or the other; and that it will deliver neither concessions, at least not in significant amounts, nor military strikes.









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